“Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” He reached a tentative hand toward her hair. When she didn’t stop him, he pushed it aside. “No processor?”

“I don’t wear it in the house normally,” she said. Which was why she hadn’t heard him. Without her processor, she was completely deaf on her right side.

“Do me a favor. Put it on. I want you aware of every sound possible.”

Right, she thought. Completely deaf on one side, I’m more vulnerable. She took her processor from her pocket and slipped it onto the back of her head, where it fixed to her skull with a small snap, all while Diesel continued to hold her hair.

“It’s a snap,” he said, curiosity in his tone. “Not held by a magnet?”

She fought a wince. She hated the snap, but it was a feature of the processor. “Cochlear implant processors are magnetized, but they’re only for people who are profoundly deaf. This is a Baha processor, because I have hearing on one side.” She turned it on. “I’m not hearing everything you can, but more than I would have.”

“Good.”

“Um . . . You can let go of my hair now.”

He grinned down at her. “Do I have to?”

She laughed and swatted his hand away. “Yes.” Then she sobered. “You didn’t tell Adam about LJM and all the other businesses and that someone bought Brewer’s house a week before he was killed.”

“No, not yet. First, he didn’t ask me. But mostly because we don’t know anything for sure yet. If I showed him what I had, it would taint his investigation because it’s information I got without a warrant.” He shrugged. “Y’know, illegally.”

She ignored his last statement. “Will you tell him?”

“If he asks me directly, yes. And when we get a name to go with whoever LJM is, or was.”

“And her Brothers Grim,” Dani added.

“Especially them. Especially if one of them turns out to be big and bald.” He tugged her hand. “Come on, you need to eat breakfast.”

She let herself be pulled back to the kitchen. “Are you going to make me a chocolate chip pancake, Coach?”

He was headed for the stove, but turned to face her, his expression earnest. His voice dropped an octave, like crushed velvet stroking her skin. “I would make you anything you wanted.”

Her mouth opened on a silent “Oh.” Tell him. Tell him that this will never work. Tell him to find someone else. But her mouth wouldn’t form the words.

He grinned again. “But for this morning pancakes will have to do.”